Shaun-Dae Clark is a second year student at The George Washington University. She works at Gelman Library and will be studying abroad at the London School of Economics this fall.
-Justice Spencer, Nico Page, Marwa Roshan
The Recitation
The Interview
interviewed by Justice Spencer
Justice: Why did you choose the poem? (“To Be in Love,” by Gwendolyn Brooks)
Shaun-Dae: I chose the poem because it is about the power of love, to be completely cliché. Though I’ve never been in love, it makes me excited (and kind of scared), about the prospect of it. Though it indicates the heartbreak and agony often associated with love, the blissful and intimate experience of being in love is emphasized, and that’s enough to make me dream. I think everyone yearns for that euphoric feeling that brightens your overall outlook at life and allows you to empathize to the greatest extent, even when the crushing blows of lost love are your reality. It somehow has the power to make us still chase it, and I think that is beautiful, and perfectly transcribed in “To Be in Love.”
Justice: How does it fit into your everyday love?
Shaun-Dae: I’m pretty obsessed with the idea of being loved and loving someone else. Every day, consciously or otherwise, I wonder if I’ll meet my person. And every day I don’t, my heart breaks a little bit more. So I listen to love songs, watch romance movies, and read poems about love that all keep my faith in the prospect. It’s evaded me for far too long.
Justice: What connection do you see between music and poetry?
Shaun-Dae: Music is poetry. In the same way poetry tells a story and/or expresses or evokes a feeling, music does as well. My go to, whenever I feel sad, happy, or heartbroken, is the accompanying music and I imagine those who write and read poetry look for that same therapeutic feeling.
Prof. Harris’s book collects his Sedgewick Memorial Lecture from 2011. Prof. Gil Harris has been on sabbatical this year, writing and doing research in India. But that doesn’t mean he has taken a hiatus in publishing. His newly released “Marvellous Repossessions: The Tempest, Globalization, and the Waking Dream of Paradise” is based on the Sedgewick…
Joanna Falk, Class of 2013 “Consider everything that’s being said about the crisis of the humanities, but continue to study what you love.” In 2013, Joanna Falk double-majored in English and psychology, earning honors in both. We chatted with Joanna recently about the meaning and value of her English major, and about her current job…
English Dept. Secretary Linda Terry, Assistant Prof. Holly Dugan, and Office Manager Constance Kibler. It’s official! Prof. Holly Dugan’s The Ephemeral History of Perfume: Scent and Sense in Early Modern England is out from The Johns Hopkins University Press! University of Michigan Prof. Michael Schoenfeldt calls it “[a] wonderful piece of work that will engage…
Tawnya Ravy Graduate student Tawnya Ravy has won a prestigious Summer Research Fellowship for 2013 from the Northeast Modern Languages Association. This fellowship will allow her to travel to Emory University in Atlanta to work in the newly opened Salman Rushdie Archive at the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Library, and to conduct critical research for…
The English Department is thrilled to announce that Alexa Alice Joubin will be joining the English department this fall as Associate Professor. Alexa, who was educated in Taiwan and received her PhD from Stanford, is an internationally recognized expert on Shakespeare in Asia, Shakespeare and performance, and digital humanities. Her monograph, Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries…
GW English Alum Nishi Chawla (PhD, 1996) NISHI CHAWLA: “A NATION SHOULD BE JUDGED BY HOW WELL IT RESPECTS ITS WOMEN.” Professor Margaret Soltan: Let’s start with the big news first. Your play, Indira, will be presented here in DC, at Spectrum Theater, on Oct 18 at 4 PM. Is this your first play? Give us a quick description…